Mental Health Awareness – Supporting Mental Wellbeing at Work

Course Overview

(Training Course for Line Managers to improve skills and awareness)

Mental Health issues affect performance and relationships both in and out of the workplace.  Your moods, emotions, and overall disposition have an impact on your job performance, decision-making abilities, creativity, team working, negotiations, and leadership.  Furthermore, if managers are not adept at meeting individuals’ emotional needs, or do not see the benefits in supporting mental health and wellbeing in the workplace, it will ultimately affect their employee turnover, which of course over time, will have an adverse financial impact on that organisation, not to mention the organisations’ reputation as an employer in the local community.

The fact is 1 in 6 workers experience stress, anxiety or depression at any one time, 50% of long term absences in non-manual workers is accounted for by stress, and 95% of people taking time off due to stress cited a different reason to their employer for their absence.

Long gone is the notion that people should leave their private life at the door, as in reality they bring all of themselves to work, including their personality traits, moods and emotions.  The skills of the line manager to recognise, empathise, and act appropriately by increasing their understanding and awareness of the emotional state and mental wellbeing of their employees, and what to do in such circumstances, can clearly contribute to a positive workplace culture and improved employee engagement.

Training Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Understand the importance of maintaining mental wellbeing at work
• Appreciate the business benefits of supporting mental wellbeing
• Recognise some of the ways mental ill-health may present in the workplace
• Know how to provide or access timely and appropriate support
• Be confident in applying the learning back in the workplace

Benefits of attending to the Organisation

• Increase productivity, efficiency and innovation
• Reduce business costs
• Improve staff morale and performance
• Reduce sickness absence, presenteeism and staff turnover
• Enhance your reputation as an employer
• Help to honour your duty of care as an employer

Course Content

• Why supporting Mental Wellbeing matters in the workplace
• Positive mental health as a business priority and strategic leadership issue
• The legal requirements (duty of care) to ensure staff’s positive mental health
• When might a mental health condition be considered a disability (Equality Act 2020)
• Recognising and managing emotional needs and situations in the workplace
  • Conversations with staff about stress or mental health: structure, active listening skills and non-judgemental questions
  • Supporting continued attendance at work
  • Managing absence: what to do when someone is off sick with stress or a mental health condition
  • Managing the return to work including making ‘reasonable adjustments’
  • Developing a plan to meet the requests for reasonable adjustments
  • The reasonable adjustments you can make
• The impact of stress and mental ill health on individuals and teams at work
  • Performance
  • Absenteeism
  • Presenteesism
• Techniques for managing conversations with staff about mental health
  • Communicating styles and awareness of the other person and their mental state
  • Mechanisms to provide appropriate feedback to individuals
• How to promote mental wellbeing
• Support structures for mental health both internal within the organisation and external
• Learning Transfer activity
• Action Planning